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Analysing The Raven

455 Words2 Pages

The emergence of gothic literature, inaugurating from the 18th century, perpetuates its renown’s genre till in present society, condoning readers’ hidden desires and curiosities to explore various perspectives, experiencing emotional fusions of uneasiness, nervous perturbation and the uncanny through the imagination without enduring its realism. American author, Edgar Allen Poe’s 1845 poem The Raven is a seminal component of gothic fiction, exhibiting exemplary characteristics of its genre through reoccurring eeriness and trepidation settings. Analysing The Raven through its implementation of comprehensive gothic poetic themes, moreover its use of broad literary approaches, patently displays the poems several strange facets of human life through …show more content…

Poe’s influential poem manifests its imbue of overwhelming grief, anger and the dwelling of abiding, permanence distress through emotional paralysis that occur within the themes of dark romance and the supernatural. The Raven begins with a jaded ambience in a “midnight dreary” (Stanza 1, line 1) while a being is deep in thought “weak and weary” (Stanza 1, line 2) deceptively establishing elements of gothic fiction to explicate the uncanny. As the poem progresses, the reader shortly cognizes a man sinking into depression over the loss of his beloved maiden, metaphorically scrutinizing the dark side of the human mind. The narrator arduously escaping his lament for “the lost [of] Lenore” reading books to “Surcease [his] Sorrow” (Stanza 2, lines 4-6) barely endeavouring a distraction for his inner anguishes. As the poem matures, The Raven further unveils into a gothic turn of dark romance, encountering a talking raven; briefly amusing him, however, the narrators disposition swiftly turns incandescent as the conversation converts into Lenore, discovering a fatuous “perched” ebony bird “upon a bust of [Athena] just above [his} chamber door” (stanza 12, lines 55-56) the raven answering with “little relevance” distracting his “sad fancy” with a smile (Stanza 13-14, lines 57-63) the narrator madly asks if his grief

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